FRA Director visits German Council for Sinti and Roma

The FRA Director will visit the Central Council and the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg on 16 July as part of the agency's wider efforts to engage with Roma stakeholders across the EU.

The FRA Director will visit the Central Council and the Documentation and Cultural Centre of German Sinti and Roma in Heidelberg on 16 July as part of the agency's wider efforts to engage with Roma stakeholders across the EU. During the visit he will hear firsthand from the Council's Chairman Romani Rose about the experiences of Sinti and Roma in Germany. It will also be an opportunity for the FRA to present to the Sinti and Roma Council initial findings of the recent survey on the situation of Roma in 11 EU Member States.

In addition, the meeting will allow the agency to explain its role under the EU Framework for national Roma integration strategies. Under the European Commission's Communication of April 2011, the FRA was tasked to work with Member States to systematically collect robust and comparable data; to engage with Roma, local and national authorities to help them develop sustainable solutions to combat discrimination, and enhance social inclusion; and to develop monitoring methods which can provide a comparative analysis of the situation of Roma across Europe. There will also be a visit to Council's permanent exhibition on the Nazi genocide against the Sinti and Roma.